Konstantin Obenland 7:21 pm on February 25, 2016
Tags: meta ( 33 ), plugin directory ( 44 )

Plugin Directory v3

A year after relaunching the Theme Directory on WordPress, the PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Directory will finally get the same make over. With the entire process being open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. from the start, please feel free to follow along and contribute on Meta Trac and in the #meta Slack channel.

Milestones are scheduled every two weeks to have short time spans to plan out, with weekly chats in between to keep each other up to date. All chats will happen in the #meta SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel, Tuesdays, 17:30 PT. The first milestone is slated for March 1, with the goal to get a minimal viable product off the ground. Namely creating a custom post typeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept. to save plugins in, getting readme.txt parsing right (and save the results in the plugin’s post content), as well as displaying plugins in a basic way on the front-end.

For more in-depth information, please consult the project overview page.

#plugin-directory

Rami Yushuvaev 7:45 pm on February 25, 2016

+1
- Tomas Mackevicius 2:03 am on February 26, 2016
  
  It would be nice if favorite plugins could be added to a separate collections that could have a distinct link. This way we would have more social aspect to favorite lists – people could have different collections (to solve different problems or to tackle different tasks, etc) and they could share those collections with their friends and/or clients.
  - Julie @Niackery 2:59 am on February 26, 2016
    
    +1
vovafeldman 2:11 am on February 26, 2016

Nice! I would really like to see an enhancement in the search.
- Konstantin Obenland 5:48 pm on February 26, 2016
  
  Anything search related will be worked on in #1574. Feel free to comment and participate!
Shrinivas 3:05 am on February 26, 2016

Nice move, Please also look at this – now when a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developer hosts his plugin on wordpress plugin directory he has to subscribe for his new plugin to get review notification and support questions to his email. It would be nice if wordpress automatically sends the plugin related notifications to plugin author by email.
- Piet Bos 3:55 am on February 26, 2016
  
  I agree with this suggestion.
  - Steve Lescure 2:20 pm on February 26, 2016
    
    i was wondering why i never get notified 🙂
- whiletrue 8:24 am on February 26, 2016
  
  +1
- Daedalon 10:45 am on February 26, 2016
  
  +1
- Konstantin Obenland 5:52 pm on February 26, 2016
  
  I added it to the ticket. #1571
Terence 7:29 am on February 26, 2016

At the moment there’s a yellow/orange 2 year old warning flag which means that the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party will not appear except in exact-match searches. If your search exactly matches the name or slug of the plugin, then it will still appear at the top of the list, but it cannot appear in searches otherwise. Additionally, an automatic system of flags, badges or banners is needed to clearly identify and protect the unwary from using obsolete, abandoned and unsupported plugins (and themes), which will anyway only be of limited use to the average user, and may actually be harmful.

A case can also be argued for code which the developer does not intend to maintain, not to have a repository support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations., which in turn would earn an automatic “not-supported” classification.

We need to make these distinctions a lot clearer in the repository, because even if the code is “obsolete”, “abandoned” or “not supported” it can still be of use to other developers. It’s just not useful to people looking for simple, easy to use Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. software.

There’s still a lot we can do to improve the experience of finding the right plugin (or theme), and at the same time make the repository a safer environment for the unwary user. People will still make their own decisions, but if we don’t warn them about plugins (and themes) nearing the end of their life-cycle, we are failing them, and making their experience of working with WordPress that little bit harder.
- jrf 3:19 pm on February 26, 2016
  
  While I agree that the use of abandoned plugins should be discouraged, there are numerous perfectly fine, working plugins which haven’t had a maintenance update in over two years **_because none is needed_**. Discouraging use of those plugins is IMHO a bit silly. They work and have apparently been coded well enough that there are no bug reports to act on and then devs are, in a way, being “punished” for being *too* good a programmer…..
  
  What about an automated once a year mailing to all pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party authors with a link to confirm they still want to maintain the plugin ? No response twice in a row = abandoned and open for another plugin dev to step in and take over ?
  
  That could also help lessen the amount of semi-duplicate plugins doing the same thing as older ones.
  - Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 6:05 pm on February 26, 2016
    
    We already email everyone when a new version of WP is coming out, telling them to update their readme (which will take them OFF the old list BTW). If their email bounces, the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party is yanked. That’s as far as we go right now.
    - jrf 6:27 pm on February 26, 2016
      
      I’m a ambivalent about that message as it encourages bad version management practices (making a change in a tagged/release version, no matter how small).
      
      Also, “yanking” plugins which may be perfectly good seems counter-productive to me. Why not open them up to other pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party devs to take over ? That way you don’t break the upgrade path for existing users, which yanking and someone forking it and putting it up again *will* do.
      - Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 4:52 pm on February 29, 2016
        
        You don’t have to tag a release to bump your readme ‘supported’ version, you know. You edit the trunk and tag readme. Done.
        
        And yanking plugins is for sanity.
        
        1) We only contact people with active plugins
        2) If your email bounces, you’re not active
        3) You’re probably not replying to forum support/security questions
        
        Handing over plugins to other people is touchy subject, if you’ve read the drama we’ve posted about over at make/plugins. People are not all good, and we have to try to measure their heart against a feather to see if they are trustable with a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. Other people have big hearts, but they trip over their feet and aren’t ready to adopt, say, a popular but abandoned plugin.
        
        I will note, you MAY be thinking this is a larger number… MAYBE 40 plugins in the last year were closed for bounced emails. Of those plugins, none had been updated in well over 4 years, and most were broken already.
        
        If anyone had wanted to adopt, we would have probably heard already.
    - Terence 11:49 am on February 27, 2016
      
      If the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party (or theme) answers a general need, it can can very quickly attract an install-base of many thousands, even hundreds of thousands of users, regardless of whether or not the author feels obligated to maintain it.
      
      I think a case can be argued for code which the developer does not intend to maintain, NOT to have a repository support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations., which in turn would earn an automatic “not-supported” classification and hopefully, one day, a [NOT SUPPORTED] flag in the repository.
  - Terence 11:43 am on February 27, 2016
    
    The difficulty is not that we have these abandoned and obsolete plugins (and themes) in the repository. They are just a by-product of Open SourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. development.
    
    It’s not even that they were put there for the right reasons, but with unintended consequences.
    
    The problem is simply this — we don’t yet have agreement amongst ourselves on how to identify and categorize them, how to define when exactly they become “abandoned”, or a set of rules where we can define them and show them clearly as being “not supported” or past the end of their useful life.
    
    What should we best do with these plugins and themes reaching the end of their useful life, in a way that will benefit the whole community, which was why they were put in the repository in the first place? How do we implement a mandatory retirement policy and at the same time protect the developer’s interest, when we are no longer in contact?
M Asif Rahman 7:39 am on February 26, 2016

Thanks. Was waiting for it. Special thanks to @Otto and @Konstantin, you guys were cooking this for awhile.
ArtissTheGeek 9:54 am on February 26, 2016

For me, as a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developer, the biggest change I’d like to see is in the “featured”, which consist of really popular plugins (often by WordPress/Automattic). Let’s have lesser known plugins featured to give them a chance of gaining popularity.

Otherwise, I’d really like a way to preview a README as it would appear on the site – as you can pass a parameter to preview a banner, you could do a README too.
David Anderson 10:20 am on February 26, 2016
It’s great that someone’s looking at improving the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party directory. As a developer, there are many frustrations with the current state of affairs – it feels quite often like tech from 2010 that gets in your way as much as assists. Here’s a personal wish-list, in no particular order:
- Though I’m more familiar in SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/. still, it’s the past. Plugin developers overwhelmingly prefer GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/., and are spending their time cooking up personal solutions to integrate it. Some knowledgeable users want to send patches and discuss them within a support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations.,, but TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/./SVN/bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org. is currently a barrier rather than a help.
- Verified profiles. Though it’s right that people should be able to be anonymous if they wish, there ought also to be more obvious visual indication of established users who are giving their real identity, so that you don’t have to hunt through profiles to see whether you’re interacting with someone who signed up an anonymous identity 5 minutes ago, or has a long-established profile with a real-world identity, or whatever.
- BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. channels. Currently, if you want people to be able to choose a beta version of your plugin, you’ve got to release a separate plugin to handle this. If this could be baked into the plugins directory and WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. so that people could easily opt into a beta channel, it’d save a lot of time and allow plugins to get more testing from people who are willing to test.
- It’s great that there’s now a “Tip: When posting a new topic, follow these steps:” message to filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. out some unnecessary support requests. It’d help developers to give us a lot more control over this message, so that it can be customised to our plugin. Custom fields would be even more awesome – loads of time is wasted in getting wanted info, or saying the same things over and over. I realise there’s always people who’ll ignore everything there. But every little helps, especially when you have a plugin installed hundreds of thousands of times.
- Likewise, if someone’s making a bad review, there should be a message to urge them into the support channel first. This is win-win – a user is more likely to solve their problem, and it leads to a more co-operative, less confrontational approach all round.
- The support forum is very basic. Often it’s necessary to go to a different channel, which wastes resources and results in some issues not being pursued. It could do with private replies (visible only to the original poster + designated associates), locked threads (lockable by the plugin owner) which only the orignal poster + plugin workers can post in, attachments (which could be private) to help with diagnosis (so that the poster doesn’t have to go and learn how to use PasteBin or Snag.Gy, etc.). It’s not integrated with SVN or GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ in any way, so there’s no facility to make automatic references.
- The “featured” plugins seems to be a basically static list of plugins, almost all from Automattic or close associates. This ought to rotate somehow – even if it’s just an algorithm that picks stuff based on good reviews/support/maintenance, etc. Otherwise, peoples’ eyes quickly glaze over and they filter it out, because they see the same static list all the time, instead of seeing new possibilities that they didn’t know about before.
- More stats for plugin developers. Currently we can see a version break-down. But it’d be great to have a PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php./MySQLMySQL MySQL is a relational database management system. A database is a structured collection of data where content, configuration and other options are stored. https://www.mysql.com/./WP version break-down, and a language break-down that’s for the plugin (rather than just the stats for WordPress as a whole).
- Better support for multi-person development teams. A lot currently is all-or-nothing. More fine-grained control over committing, closing threads, having different labels appear for different levels of staff in the team when posting in the forum (e.g. customised labels – so I could set up “lead developer”, “support team”, etc.).
- The star rating should be based on ratings in the last X months, instead of all-time. Otherwise, bad reviews (whether fair and responded to, on totally unreasonable), stay forever – and conversely, a plugin with a huge number of positive reviews has a rating that is basically immune to doing something awful to its users with its next release, or if someone buys the plugin and takes it in a 100% different direction, it still is rated based on old reviews.
I realise some or even much of this may be out of scope for the current project. It seemed like a good opportunity to put it down.
- Konstantin Obenland 6:22 pm on February 26, 2016
  
  TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/./SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/./bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org. is currently a barrier rather than a help
  
  Good thing bbPress will be a thing of the past then! PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party authors don’t really have to deal with plugins trac either. 🙂
  
  The support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations. is very basic.
  
  The support forums are separate from the plugin directory. We won’t be addressing them at this time.
  
  More stats for plugin developers.
  
  #1596 is covering the stats page/tab in the new directory. Please feel free to comment there with any suggestions you have!
  
  Better support for multi-person development teams
  
  This is definitely something that will be easier to iterate on once the directory runs on WordPress. At this point I’m not sure how that will translate over to the forums though, so that would have to be seen. In the mean time, #1571 deals with the administrative area for plugin authors and committers.
- Alin Marcu 10:02 am on February 27, 2016
  
  >The star rating should be based on ratings in the last X months, instead of all-time.
  
  See ticket #1181.
JasWSInc 12:49 pm on February 26, 2016
Yay! Long overdue. A pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party directory v3 will be a huge improvement. I’m so excited about this.

Here are a few ideas that come to mind.
- GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/. in favor of bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org./SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/./TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.. I echo David Anderson’s comments on this. Please use GitLab, move it to GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/, or a bake it into a custom solution. My suggestion would be to offer Git repos hosted at WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/, but also make it possible for plugin developers to source their repos from GitHub or BitBucket if that is easier for them.
- The support forums leave a lot to be desired. A quick comparison of WordPress.org forums vs. Discourse will show what’s missing. bbPress does well for many use cases, but unless it gets an overhaul, I don’t view it as the right product for plugin developers to use in assisting their users. If Git is introduced (I can only hope), then perhaps a platform that is Git-centric would be most helpful.
- Even if the WordPress.org support forumSupport Forum WordPress Support Forums is a place to go for help and conversations around using WordPress. Also the place to go to report issues that are caused by errors with the WordPress code and implementations. is updated, please give plugin developers the option of choosing to provide support with a dedicated forum of their own; i.e., let the link which leads to the support forums be customized using metadata in the readme.txt file. This would be especially helpful for developers that offer both a free and a pro version of their plugin. The current WordPress.org forum guidelines prohibit pro-related discussion. That’s totally understandable, but when you have free users in a forum at WordPress.org and pro users in a forum of your own, it splits things up and makes the experience less than ideal for users of the software.
- Make it possible for plugin developers to define minimum platform requirements; e.g., minimum PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. version. This could be defined in the readme.txt file, and perhaps it would also be helpful to list PHP extensions that are required for the plugin to function as expected. Once implemented, this could later be connected to the plugin upgrader in WP coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. so that a user will be unable to install a plugin that will only lead to parse errors because they don’t meet system requirements. What’s missing in WP core is a true package manager that can satisfy dependencies, including system requirements like minimum PHP version. That might be a project of its own, but I suspect it will need to start with the plugin directory itself.
- +1 for more stats. The more we know, the better we can do.
- +1 for ratings that are based on reviews in the last X months instead of all-time.
- +1 for rotating the list of featured plugins. I agree it is too static.
- +1 for betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. channels.
- Patrick Robrecht 3:29 pm on March 28, 2016
  
  +1 for defining platform requirements, e. g. minimum and maximum PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. version the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party is compatible to. So you could see in the Plugin Directory whether the plugin is compatible with PHP 7 already (as a user of other plugins I recently noticed some plugins not working as expected anymore after an upgrade to PHP 7).
  
  In addition to platform requirements, dependencies to other plugins and the compatible versions of those could be added. Later this might even be used in the installation process (“You installed a plugin A which needs plugin B. Do you want to install plugin B?”).
Ahmad Awais 1:40 pm on February 26, 2016

+1 for this.
— Search could use definite enhancements.
— Shift to GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/.? 🤓
- Konstantin Obenland 5:58 pm on February 26, 2016
  
  We won’t change the VCS anytime soon, at least not with this update. But search is certainly on the list, feel free to follow along and contribute at #1574!
  - ghoush 3:11 pm on February 27, 2016
    
    This right here should sadden just about everyone. Allow GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ with its webhooks. Whenever something is committed to master it can be automatically deployedDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. to WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/. Continuous deployment like that would make it so much easier for developers.
    
    As someone said earlier, SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/. is a thing of the past, it lost and GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/. won. It’s been years, why is WordPress.org still on SVN? It’s mind-blowing.
  - Ahmad Awais 5:59 pm on March 8, 2016
    
    Sure, I will check that. Wish we could shift to GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/. sooner than later.
ccprog 2:55 pm on February 26, 2016

What I would like to see is work on the readme format – to me it seems to be a one-size-fits-noone. Why is there a FAQ, but no standard place for usage instructions? Who will ever find whats hidden in “Other Notes?” How many screenshots are published just to fill the tab? How many Installation instructions consist of the exact same four copied-and-pasted lines? (and are slated again and again in GlotPress for translation…)

If you look at how many developers choose to host user documentation outside of the directory, it is clear that it currently is not a suitable place. For users that means they have to visit one place for documentation, and another one for support, and for developers it means at least two hosting places for one pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.

Another aspect is the half-cooked markdown format for the readme. I have great hopes that using a custom post format will improve the posibilities for sensible design. The current Readme Validator, which renders a preview that widely deviates from the real page, badly needs to be retired!

+1 for GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/. interfacing, btw
- Dion Hulse 12:19 am on February 28, 2016
  
  We’re definitely open to altering the readme structure or adding more sections – if required – however I don’t see us changing the readme format completely in the short term.
  
  I’d (and I know others are onboard with this) personally like to remove the Installation section and replace it with a Usage section, so consider that on the cards. A Usage section is far more useful to an end-user than Installation instructions (I would hope that this used to be intended for how to set up the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, in addition to uploading the plugin..).
  
  The Readme hasn’t been viable for support documentation for a while now, mostly due to the low filesize limits the existing directory enforces (~30KB from memory), but I’d love to see us encourage full documentation – however I think that’s a project in of itself, getting a one-size-fits-all documentation ability for authors is going to be a challenge – what would effectively be a blog post is not the best documentation format for most projects.
  
  As for Markdown, I’ve upgraded our markdown parser to something more recent already, and I really love your idea for a WYSIWYGWhat You See Is What You Get What You See Is What You Get. Most commonly used in relation to editors, where changes made in edit mode reflect exactly as they will translate to the published page. validator.
  - ccprog 12:17 am on February 29, 2016
    
    Are you aware of #457 ?
    - ccprog 12:20 am on February 29, 2016
      
      Ah, that doesn’t seem to work: [#457](https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/457)
- Mark Uraine 8:45 pm on February 29, 2016
  
  Makes sense. I think any global applicable tabs like “Installation” should be globally communicated from a subpage or something similar on the PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Dir. and not on each individual plugin since it’s pretty much all the same.
  
  Can we combine tabs like ‘FAQ’, ‘Other Notes’, and ‘Screenshots’ onto the ‘Description’ tab?
Thomas Townsend 5:29 pm on February 26, 2016

Can you guys create a SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. Channel for this TOPIC please? – a lot of us monitor and use slack as opposed to email snail messaging on updates to this post. Thanks
- Konstantin Obenland 5:45 pm on February 26, 2016
  
  As mentioned in the post, we’ll be using the #metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. channel on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/..
David Lingren 3:58 am on February 29, 2016

I was disappointed to see that “The support forums are separate from the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party directory. We won’t be addressing them at this time.” The single most important improvement you can make would be an ability to limit the “search” box to the topics within a single plugin. I have responded to many complaints about the “useless” search function and I spend a lot of time linking support questions to earlier topics that answered the question but could not be found with search.
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 4:46 pm on February 29, 2016
  
  That is a technical statement, you know, David.
  
  The support forums, literally, is a different software set than the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party repo. They’re related, yes, but they’re not controlled by the same code, so upgrading one doesn’t reflect the other. The support forums WILL be upgraded, but since it’s in the wheelhouse of the forums as a whole, is actually even worse messy than plugins 🙂
daniyalahmedk 6:13 pm on March 1, 2016

I think there should be some thing like “Live Demo” link, some thing like codecanyon 😉
bfintal 6:49 am on March 2, 2016

This is a great improvement! 🙂
Ryan Stutzman 2:09 pm on March 9, 2016

One kind of silly thing with SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/. is that you have to set the MIME types of screenshots to keep them from downloading when clicked. Can this not be handled automatically? It seems like a pretty common problem.

And +1 for GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/.!
Mickey Kay 9:56 pm on March 27, 2016

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, however one improvement I’d really like to see added is the ability to more easily search support threads. I often find myself trying in vain to locate a support ticket for a given pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party that answers the question/issue I’m encountering, however there is no functionality to search within a given plugin’s support thread. This would be awesome, and potentially save a bunch of time for both the end-user (faster search) as well as the plugin developer (fewer duplicate tickets opened).

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